Hit and Run: A Mafia Hitman Romance (7 page)

I groan inwardly. She was listening at the top of the stairs. Of course. I can’t blame her for that. It’s exactly what I would do if I were her. “Elizabeth, your father wasn’t supposed to die. I was trying to protect him. I was going to get him out.”

She looks shocked. “Get him out? You’re telling me…no. No way. No way.”

I was waiting for this. I knew that once
she
knew what her father was doing, she would be upset.

“You’re telling me that my father was an informant?”

I nod slowly. “Yes. He was. He was going to go into witness protection, and you and your sister were going to go with him.”

She shakes her head violently. “My father wasn’t a snitch.”

“I wouldn’t really use that word, but your father was trying to get out of the mafia life, Elizabeth. For you. And for your sister.”

Elizabeth is shaking. “Wait a second. You knew that my father was an informant and you knew this was coming. So what is this crap about you wanting me to go to college? Huh? You knew that I was going to have to rip up my life and move somewhere else? How could you know that and not tell me?”

“Your father wasn’t being taken into hiding for another year, Elizabeth. I thought you could use the time you had to get a head start-“

“Hold on,” she says. “I’m so furious I’m missing something here. If you knew about my father, and about witness protection, then you’re a part of this too. You – you work for the feds. You sold out your own family. To the feds. You
are
the feds. How could you
do
that?”

“They paid better,” I quip, trying to smile at her. But of course, Elizabeth isn’t having any humor right now.

“You are unbelievable.”

“
I’m
unbelievable? Are you serious? You were yelling at me three weeks ago about how I did everything my family wanted to, without question, and how that was a bad thing. Now I’m telling you that I work for the good guys and you’re telling me that’s not okay, either?”

“You betrayed your family. I would
never
do that.”

“Yeah, I know. You would have been the world’s first ninety-year-old Italian restaurant hostess if you had it your way.”

Elizabeth’s eyes go wide and her mouth clamps shut. She turns to face Robert. “Good night, whoever you are.” And with that, she stomps up the steps. I hear a door slam, more footsteps, and the creak of an old mattress.

“Oh, to be young and in love,” Robert says quietly, chuckling to himself.

“We are not in love,” I say, flabbergasted. “She hates my fucking guts.”

Robert stands up and smooths out his threadbare bathrobe. “I stand by what I said. You both could use a good night’s sleep and then we can talk about all of this in the morning.”

It’s not until Robert is all the way upstairs do I realize that I’ll be sleeping on the sofa.

Just perfect. My first night of married life and I’m already in the dog house. Unbelievable.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

ELIZABETH

It takes me forever to fall asleep. I pound the lumpy, uncomfortable pillow into a million different shapes, but none of them actually make me settle into slumber.

Because every single time I close my eyes, all I can see is my father’s face as he died. Right in front of me. All that blood.

I don’t even have it in me to cry.

When I finally do drift off, my dreams are filled with doors that close just as I’m about to walk through them. I see my sister through window-filled hallways, but she can’t hear me through the glass. At some point, Cain joins me in my dreams, holding my hand the way he did the night he took me to the library.

We walk together down a hallway with blood red walls. There’s a window at the end. Just as we reach it, the glass shatters and gunfire sounds from the white, bright space beyond.

“Elizabeth,” Dream Cain says to me. “You have to wake up.” He puts his hand on my shoulder and shakes it. “Elizabeth! Wake up!”

My eyes fly open in the dark bedroom. I’m totally disoriented. I have no idea where I am.

Cain is
actually
standing over me, shaking my shoulder. It wasn’t a dream. “Get up. Now. There’s no time to explain.”

“What-“ The sound of gunfire enters my brain. That wasn’t a dream, either.

I hop out of bed and Cain shoves my clothes towards me. I took them off last night after I was sure everyone was asleep, cuddling up only in the bra and underwear I’d had on under my wedding dress. I pull on the jeans and flannel and Cain hands me a thick coat that I’m certain will fall to my knees. He opens the closet and pulls out a pair of boots, tossing them on the ground.

“Those are way too big,” I protest absurdly. Like it matters. I hear the splintering of wood as something heavy batters the front door downstairs.

The old man is standing in the doorway holding a gun that is nearly as big as he is.

“You’ll have to go on foot,” he says. “I’ll hold them off. I promise.”

Cain throws open the dresser drawer and a second later, there’s something wooly being thrown in my direction. I catch a pair of thick, balled up socks in my hands. These will make the shoes fit better. I fumble with them but manage to pull them on as best as I can.

“Go out my window. There’s the back porch roof right below it. You can shimmy down the drain pipe.”

Cain claps him on the shoulder and they exchange a look that I can’t quite read.

“You’re really not coming with us?” I ask.

“You need to go,” the man says. “Run.”

Cain pulls me down the hallway and pushes me in front of the window. I pull open the sash and duck my head out. “I don’t think I can climb down that.”

More gunfire and yelling.

“You don’t have a choice, princess.”

I step tentatively onto the curling asphalt shingles. The night air is bitterly cold, and the moon is so bright it almost feels like daylight. I hear Cain behind me, still in the bedroom, moving something heavy.

He must be barricading the door.

Shouts and the biggest round of gunfire yet propel me over to the far corner of the roof. I feel something vine-covered through the boot and hope this is the drainpipe.

The vines cut my hands as I hang on for dear life. Cain is suddenly right above me, his blue eyes reflecting in the moonlight. “Drop to the ground.”

“I can’t,” I say, frozen to the pipe.

I hear pounding on the bedroom door.

“
Now
, Lizzy!”

I fall to the ground, landing in a relatively soft bush.

Cain scampers down the drain pipe like it’s nothing. He jumps to the side, missing the bush entirely and lands neatly on his feet. I take his hand.

“We gotta go,” he says.

A second later, the back window shatters and a bullet whizzes by Cain’s head.

“Run!”

I don’t have to be told twice this time.

We tear off into the night toward the thick forest.

I’m running as fast as I can, but the heavy boots are holding me back. Cain is still in his dress shoes and tuxedo but it doesn’t seem to be slowing him down any. The night air is cutting into my lungs, an icy blast that burns as I pant.

“Stop, wait!” I call to Cain.

He turns around with an almighty roar and lifts me up like he’s carrying me across the threshold.

What a way to spend a wedding day.

“I don’t need to be carried like I’m some kind of child,” I protest, as he starts running again with me in his arms. “I just needed a damn second to rest.”

“We can still see the farmhouse, Lizzy. This is the only option, whether you like it or not.”

“Well, I don’t like it. For the record,” I retort childishly.

Cain leaps over a fallen tree like it’s a tiny hurdle. “Noted.”

I hang on for dear life.

Cain moves through the forest like he’s some sort of winged beast, jumping obstacles and barely crunching the leaves.

I’m starting to calm down. It’s Cain’s cologne. His musky natural scent. How he holds me so strongly and yet so delicately, like I’m a feather weighing hardly more than the wind I’m drifting across. My sense of humor is coming back.

“Admit it,” I say quietly. “You’re secretly a vampire.”

Cain looks down at me in confusion. “What?”

“You’re Edward. From the vampire book. You know. He runs really fast, he’s ridiculously strong, and his skin glitters in the sun.” I pause. “You know, come to think of it, I’ve yet to actually see you in pure sunshine.”

Cain gives me a wry smile. “I assure you I don’t sparkle.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Cain pauses. “If I remember right, the woman he carries through the forest ends up falling in love with him and having his baby.”

The words shimmer in front of me. “You’re kidding. You’ve read those books?”

Cain shrugs and deftly leaps over a pile of brush. “Hasn’t everyone read those books?”

“You even read the last one, since you know about the baby. That’s some true commitment right there.”

Cain stops running and stares at me. He speaks, words coming out of his beautiful lips. “You tell anyone about me reading those books, and I’ll have to kill you.”

“Noted,” I reply, throwing his own word back at him. It’s weird to be joking like this. It must be some sort of coping mechanism. Anything to keep me from thinking about what is actually happening.

Cain is finally panting. “I need to put you down. We’re nearly out of the woods,” he says. “Well, not metaphorically. We’re still in the woods metaphorically. You know. Being on the run and all.”

I laugh as he sets me delicately on the forest floor, pine needles crunching under my feet.

“But we’re
literally
nearly out of the woods. Good.” We stand there, my body still warm from the radiant heat of his against mine.

“Aren’t you cold?” I ask him.

He shrugs in his battle-worn tuxedo. “I’m fine. Don’t take that coat off. There’s no way I’m going to let a woman freeze on my behalf. No way at all.”

I let him catch his breath. “You know, vampires are already cold, so I don’t think they need coats, either.”

Cain laughs. “Let’s get moving, Bella.”

Totally against my will and better judgment, my stomach fills with butterflies over him calling me Bella. I pinch my arm underneath the down coat. I need to get a grip. This guy is a killer, a stone-cold killer. Not someone I’m supposed to be getting warm and fuzzy over.

But I do stare at his ass, tight in his tuxedo pants, as he walks in front of me.

Soon, we are
actually
out of the woods. There’s a farmhouse near us, one downstairs room illuminated.

“There,” Cain whispers. “We’re going there.”

I follow him, unquestioning. I have to jog to keep up with his confident strides. My breath is coming out in foggy puffs. When we reach the house, I hesitate.

But Cain knocks confidently on the door of the back porch, taking a few steps back.

He’s polite. I like that.

Then I immediately hate that I like that.

Killer. Henchman. Snitch.

I can’t possibly be with him.

The door opens and reveals an old woman, her spine slightly bent from old age, holding a candle.

“Yes?” she asks, looking somewhat confused. She eyes Cain’s clothes.

“Sorry to disturb your morning ritual,” Cain says, his voice deeper and smoother than I remember. I realize that he’s pouring on charm. I wonder if this is part of his training. “I’d like to buy your truck.”

Now
that
I wasn’t expecting. What truck? I peer around the edge of the porch railing and see an old beater truck with brown, dead weeds growing up around the tires.

“Will that thing run?” I ask, unable to keep my mouth shut.

Cain doesn’t answer, instead taking the moment to pull out a stack of hundred dollar bills from his tuxedo.

The old woman looks him dead in the eye. “You remind me of my husband,” she says. “I don’t think I could say no to those baby blues. Come inside.”

“We don’t have a lot of time so - “ Cain says.

“You want the truck? You’re coming inside.”

She doesn’t wait for us to deny her.

Cain holds out his arm with a sardonic grin to let me walk through the door first. “After you, milady.”

“Thanks,” I say.

The heavy boots I’m wearing make the floorboards creak. The kitchen smells like just warming up coffee and wood polish. This place is old, but it’s immaculate.

The butcher block countertop has been recently polished, and the dining table has a neat, crocheted lace doily in the center. On top of that is a blue ceramic bowl filled with oranges. My stomach rumbles and I clap a hand over it.

The old woman laughs. “Have a seat. I’ll make you some waffles.”

Cain opens his mouth again and the old lady actually hushes him with a sharp noise. “If I’m letting go of my favorite truck, we’re going to do things my way. And that’s not a question. I’m too damn old to be taking orders from anyone other than me.”

Cain pulls out a straight-backed wicker chair. I pull off my coat.

“What?” I say to Cain, who looks annoyed that I’m doing that. “She said to get comfortable. We’re clearly not going anywhere.”

“Get some more wood out back for me, will you, son?”

“Sure, ma’am,” Cain replies.

Unflinchingly polite. I hate how sexy that is. Cain walks outside and I watch the woman deftly assembling the ingredients for pancakes. The sound of the metal whisk churning through the thick batter reminds me of being at home. I relax instantly.

And then I feel a surge of guilt as I think of my father. My heart races.

“How did you know we were fugitives?” I ask her in an attempt to distract myself. I’m sure if Cain were here he’d shush me. But he isn’t.

The old woman laughs. “I meant it in the general sense. Your man there is wearing a tuxedo. It’s five in the morning. You must be running from something.”

“That doesn’t bother you, not knowing?”

She turns around and smiles at me, the whisk still in her hand. “My husband broke up my wedding, too. To another man. He stood up when the preacher asked if anyone had any reason why these two shouldn’t be married, and bam. Next thing I know, I’m running out of a church in my wedding dress. We got married in a courthouse the next morning.” Her eyes go misty and she coughs, waving away the tears with a wrinkled hand. “That’s all in the past now.”